Wednesday, August 30, 2017

Monday, August 28, 2017

This ponderosa pine was collected in Colorado in 1995. I got it into
Germany in 1996 and immediately potted it into the wonderful round
container by Derek Aspinall. Already at that time people said that the
container was great, but I would never ever get the tree out again and
eventually would have to destroy the pot. Now, 21 year later it was time
to repot the pine as it was slowing down in growth considerably. Some
may be astounded about 21 years. This is very normal for really old
collected conifers. Some are not repotted in 30 years! Anyway, already
21 years ago I had used modern substrate. Taking out the tree of the
container without destroying the pot took me ten minutes. Not really
problematic with modern substrate. If I had planted the tree into
akadama or loamy soil originally I would have had a root ball hard as
cement and the pot (being worth around 700) would have had to be
destroyed. While at it I changed the position of the tree and now I am
quite happy. The new pot is by Lubos Skoda.